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School board member is accused of sex assault

A former Los Angeles police officer, retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and former Plateau Valley School District board member has been arrested on suspicion he repeatedly sexually assaulted a teenager starting in mid-2003, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department said.

Rodney Felix Eddy, 67, 11598 46.6 Road, is suspected of having a girl watch pornography and perform various sexual acts starting in the summer of 2003 and continuing through January 2008, according to Eddy’s arrest warrant.

Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger called the case one of the most aggravated series of sexual assaults he has seen in his career.

“My office will seek an extremely long prison sentencing in this case,” Hautzinger pledged during a Thursday hearing.

Mesa County Court Judge Gretchen Larson called the allegations “incredibly egregious.”
Investigators started investigating Eddy’s past after the girl contacted law enforcement in early May.

During the May 5 interview, the affidavit said, the girl told investigators the sexual assaults started when Eddy’s wife was traveling in Ireland.

At the time, the girl told investigators, Eddy would turn on pornography and ask her to perform sexual acts on him. Eventually, the affidavit said, Eddy gave her alcohol and muscle relaxers to facilitate the assaults.

The girl told investigators the assaults stopped after Eddy’s wife returned home from her trip and when she was home from school, where his wife worked.

Starting again in the summer of 2004, Eddy sexually assaulted the girl at his home and in his truck when the two went on drives to get hay for his farm animals, the affidavit said.

Throughout the ordeal, the affidavit said, Eddy called the girl his “little wife.”

Following the girl’s report to police, investigators searched Eddy’s home the next day.

During the search, investigators reported finding photographs of Eddy sexually assaulting the girl with his hand, the warrant affidavit said.

Investigators said Eddy told them during a September interview the photographs showed him and the girl.